and out—as if she’d done something extraordinary.
And all he did was gaze down at her, his expression uncompromising.
“Very pretty,” he said after a moment.
Erika wanted to say something sarcastic. Poke at him, maybe. Or perhaps make a joke. Anything to lighten the mood, or make the fire in her dim a little, or counter the bizarre sense of relief she felt that he’d complimented her, but that didn’t seem to be possible. She couldn’t make her mouth do what she wanted it to do.
Because the more he gazed down at her, apparently perfectly happy to stand there all night, the more she was aware of all the other parts of her body. The way her thighs felt, splayed wide beneath the short, short skirt she’d chosen to wear. The cool kiss of the floor beneath her knees and shins. Her bare toes were cool, and it felt like a notable, erotic contrast to how confined her chest and her breasts felt in the strappy top. When she’d put it on earlier, it had felt almost loose, but not now. Now she thought another deep breath would pop the straps, and expose all of her to him.
That notion should have scared her, but it didn’t.
Or it didn’t completely scare her.
She could feel her heart, beating so fast it thudded in her ears like her own personal drum. And like a thick pulse in her pussy, a staccato beat in her nipples and a riot in her chest. Everywhere else, her exposed skin felt much too warm.
Erika didn’t really understand any of this. She didn’t understand the reaction she’d had to Dorian with a whip in his hand. A whip. She didn’t understand the roaring, greedy thing that had walloped her in that crowd, that had made her come and then made her run, like opposite sides of the same too-hot coin.
She’d thought that she was so edgy when she’d played around with handcuffs and a blindfold and a soft little flogger thing, but she’d been kidding herself. This was like a completely different language, and she didn’t know how to speak a single word of it.
She couldn’t find the words, but he’d told her to kneel and she had.
And really, Erika didn’t understand why kneeling before a man didn’t make her angry. Why, instead, what coursed through her felt a whole lot more like that same dark, greedy hunger that had taken her over earlier.
When Erika had always preferred her orgasms sweet and quick, spring showers to dance in rather than the crash and immensity of a sea that could eat her alive.
“I normally prefer submissives to keep their eyes lowered at first,” Dorian said in that low voice of his that somehow made it sound as if what was happening between them was normal.
Because it was, she reminded herself sharply. And maybe with a touch of panic. For him, this was any old night at the club. The only difference was that she was his best friend’s little sister.
Something about that fact—which she’d known full well while she’d spent all these months trying to get herself into this very position, not to mention most of her life—twisted in her differently now. It made her feel even hotter suddenly.
Erika tried to focus on what he’d said.
“Why do you want their eyes lowered?” she demanded, and she did not avert her gaze. Instead, she glared at him. “Because you hate women?”
“Because I love what it does to a woman when she surrenders herself into my hands,” Dorian said. “By her choice. And your impertinence is noted. If I were you, I would rethink that glare.”
That shouldn’t make her thighs clench, but it did. And for a moment, she thought her pussy might take over again, catapulting her toward another climax she didn’t want and couldn’t make any sense of. She tried to fight it back.
And that gleam in his dark eyes made her think he knew exactly what was happening inside her. When he couldn’t. Could he?
“But I can tell you’re brand-new, Erika,” he said then, and he had to know how riled up she was, or why else would he sound so satisfied? “So I will give you more leeway than I would otherwise.” He tilted his head slightly to one side, that assessing look as cool as it was stirring. “And I find I quite like the way you look at me.”
Whatever snarky remark she’d meant to throw at him died there in her mouth. Because she couldn’t help thinking he looked more like a wolf. Poised to take the leap that would take his quarry down.
He looked as if he could pounce at any moment.
And it was hard, once again, to catch her breath.
“Let me tell you the rules,” Dorian said.
“They told us at the door,” she all but threw at him, filled to the brim with a kind of desperation she didn’t recognize. Did she want to poke at him—or please him? “Green light is yes, yellow light is I’m not sure and red light is stop.”
“Are you satisfied with that system as your safe word?” He studied her and he was so thorough. It made her ache. “Let me backtrack. Do you know what a safe word is?”
“Of course I know what a safe word is,” she said. Or really snapped. Making no effort to modulate her cranky tone. “I read Fifty Shades like everybody else.”
Dorian did not wince. Not exactly. And yet she was in no doubt that he’d come as close to rolling his eyes as she’d ever seen. “This is not the place to mention that book, if you please.”
And Erika realized that she hadn’t…forgotten she was kneeling, necessarily. It was impossible to forget. But it had changed into something else.
She felt quivery, the way she had before. It seemed to go straight through her, as if kneeling on the ground at Dorian’s feet had plugged her into an electrical current and it kept pouring into her. Making her sizzle and burn.
But the panic was gone. She felt calmer, somehow, when surely it should have been the opposite. Surely she should have been too outraged and weirded out to stay in that position—but the longer she stayed there, exposed and vulnerable, the more she started to feel something utterly contradictory.
Safe.
“What are your hard limits?” Dorian asked in that cool way of his. But not quite clinically, she could see. There was that intensity in his gaze. The way he held hers.
It was as if she was nothing but a bright pebble closed tight in his fist.
She had no idea where that image came from. Or why she reacted to it the way she did, everywhere—from a breath that shivered out too hot to that melting, aching fever in her pussy.
“My hard limits?”
“Repeating a question is not answering it, Erika. Try again.”
She thought she might be sweating. “Um. I mean…”
“I’m not familiar with those sexual practices. Enlighten me.”
“There are just so many things,” she said, because she had to say something. Even if it was desperate.
“Then perhaps we should narrow it down.”
One of his dark brows rose, and she had the vague notion that it made him look demonic. What it did not do was detract in any way from his appeal. Maybe, she thought wildly, there really was something the matter with her. But she didn’t rise from her knees. She didn’t bolt again, the way some part of her wanted to do.
But only so he can catch you, a voice inside her whispered, like another bolt of electricity.
“Do you want me to tie you up?” Dorian asked, his voice somehow managing to be matter-of-fact and silky at the same time. It felt like an assault. It made her think of that whip, arcing through the air and yet landing like a kiss. She couldn’t seem to stay still on her own knees. “Cuffs? Chains? And what would I do once I did tie you up? You seem to like the looks